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Rumor of Betelgeuse's Death Greatly Exaggerated
The Bad Astronomer writes "A rumor is spreading on the Net like wildfire that the red supergiant star Betelgeuse is about to explode in a supernova. This rumor is almost certainly not true. First, it's posted on a doomsday forum. Second, it's three times removed from the source, and is anonymous at each step. Third, the evidence is shaky at best. Plus, even if true, the supernova is too far away to hurt us. But other than that ..."
Betelgeuse. Betelgeuse. Betelgeuse.
There he is right there.
If Betelgeuse goes supernova tomorrow, it will take 495 years for the light to reach us! Or are we arguing about whether or not it went supernova 495 years ago...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I mean, does this story warrant inclusion on slashdot? There are plenty of other places to go for bad rumors and conspiracy theories.
Hmm... That's almost more interesting to me. Seems pretty odd to have a doomsday forum. If you think the world is ending soon, you're going to be online, chatting about it? Are the doomsday predictions spinning off to places other than Earth because doomsayers realized they're tired of being wrong and if they're right about predicting the earth's demise, they won't get any credit for it?
What's new here? It's long been known that Betelgeuse is a massive post main sequence star and will explode as a supernova in the (astronomical) near future.
Nobody yet knows where the Hrung is, nor why it should choose to collapse on Betelgeuse Seven.
I don't see any Pierson's Puppeteers around. I think we should get out of here.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
...on very good authority that, in two weeks, Mars will appears as big as the MOON in the night sky!!
I swear I have assuage my Mom's fear about that one every year. I would just send her to Snopes. But the copious pop-under ads, malware, etc. makes me think I would be causing more problems that I would solve.... "No Mom. You cannot make win a free XBox by punching that monkey...". But I digress.
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In other news, the M1 nebula is NOT... I repeat, *not* about to disappear.
Bernard's Star is also NOT going nova this week. Probably not next week either.
Also, do not panic. Neptune is quite stable in its orbit and is NOT about to collide with Jupiter, say astronomers. Repeat, it *will not* collide.
Anyone with a good telescope available?!
The one thing I don't want to be doing if Betelgeuse goes supernova is looking at it with a telescope.
(not with my remaining good eye that is).
http://michaelsmith.id.au
The Apocalypse, the Communist Conspiracy, The Mayan Calendar, Global Warming, Global Freezing, The Heat Death of the Universe, The Comet Calamity, Alien Invasion, The Super Bug, Al-Qaeda, The Neo Nazis, The Neocons, the Return of the Old Ones, Tesla's Super Weapon, The Collapse of the Dollar, The Collapse of the Universe... I don't quite get why we're still here. We should have been wiped out many times over.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
The blog writer complains that this rumor is "spreading like wildfire" but only cites to a single forum where the rumor apparently started. The blow writer then makes a snide comment about a "doomsday" forum, and then spends time with what appears to be an exasperated manner of speaking declaring that a supernova at that distance wouldn't cause any danger, only the original forum post never said it would--it basically saying how cool this would be to see. Why does it feel like a manufactured controversy? As best I can tell this anonymous forum poster may have been mistaken, but the reaction from the Discover blog is ridiculously out of proportion to that mistake.
When I Googled "I was talking to my son last week (he works on Mauna Kea), and he mentioned some new observations" to see how far this had spread it came up with a glorious 5 hits. That's spreading like wildfire?
Nice try, but I'm not falling for that one.
The average galaxy experiences a supernova roughly once every hundred years. Yes, we have seen some; there was one in a neighboring galaxy in 1987. What's really whack is that there are about 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe. Using the estimate of one supernova per galaxy per century, this works out to like thirty supernova every second! Shit's blowin' up like crazy!
Can't remember the author, but it goes like this:
Amateur astronomers are out watching the sky for the rumored light from a star that had gone supernova thousands of years before. The supernova was predicted by astronomers as early as the middle ages. It was supposedly going to be very bright. Well, the sun rises early...or at least some brightly shining object. But one of the people corrects the questioner, stating that it is the hour of the moon's rising and it must be reflecting the light from the new star. Someone suggests that it seemed to be getting rather warm.
Short of it is, this exploding star's light was several times more intense than even our Sun. In the short term it created massive weather effects -- tornados, typhoons, etc. But the air temperature in the first day of its arrival soared to over 200 degrees F - the oceans began to boil, it was unbearable to be outside. The people who survived until the first night -- when the air temperature dropped to somewhere over 130 F -- began pondering what life forms would carry on after this, because it wouldn't be humans.
There was a similar something in the news last year -- light from an ancient supernova finally reaching Earth and it made me think of this story then too. Not sure what happened to that one.
The rumour was it will occur in the next few weeks, similar to SN 1054 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_1054
[quote]SN 1054 (Crab Supernova) was a supernova that was widely seen on Earth in the year 1054. It was recorded by Chinese, Japanese, Native Americans, and Persian/Arab astronomers as being bright enough to see in daylight for 23 days and was visible in the night sky for 653 days.[1][2][3] The progenitor star was located in the Milky Way galaxy at a distance of 6,300 light years and exploded as a core-collapse supernova.[/quote]
Anyone with a good telescope available?!
Depends what you consider "good." If you're thinking of something in the $199-$15,999 price range, with an aperture of 4-16 inches (which should be plenty for just looking at a nearby supernova, then the 16" Meade or one of the 14" Celestrons where I stargaze should work.
If, on the other hand, you're thinking more in the $3,000,000-$400,000,000 range, then I'd have to schlep all the way up to the general vicinity of work.
But I'm relatively certain that even folks around work would be interested in looking at it. I think it'd be a Type II supernova, but I could ask if the Type Ia collaboration I'm in could look at it too... but unfortunately since it's pretty much up during the day this time of year, and "close to" the Sun in the sky, it'd be a hard target.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
People will take a phenomenon verified by hundreds of scientists in dozens of studies, global warming, and dismiss it because they got stuck in a snow drift. Then they'll turn around and forward an email that cites a brother's wife's uncle's cousin as breathless proof of impending calamity? I know the answer -- people are stupid. The question is purely rhetorical. :)
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!
The real doomsday sign is the cubs wining it all!
Should I start looking for cats and dogs living together amidst mass hysteria?
Global warming affect them, and they know that if true, it could point back at their own excess, or force them to change their lifestyle. A big problem. Whereas beltegeuse exploding, it won't affect anybody, so they don't mind spreading the rumor as a joke. The one REALLY stupid which REALLY think that would affect them, would not be able to come with the idea anyway.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
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